About Lisa: Lisa Mantchev grew up in the small Northern California town of Ukiah. She can pinpoint her first forays into fiction to the short stories she thumped out on an ancient typewriter. Playwriting came a few years later with an adaptation of Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird for May Day Festival in the fourth grade. She makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state with her husband Angel, her daughter Amélie and four hairy miscreant dogs. When not scribbling, she can be found on the beach, up a tree, making jam or repairing things with her trusty glue gun. Eyes Like Stars is her first novel. Find out more at http://theatre-illuminata.com.

The Story

When I have anxiety dreams, I'm usually in some version of Christopher Durang's An Actor's Nightmare: being shoved onstage in a costume that doesn't fit (when there's a costume at all!) and realizing I don't know my lines.

Publishing a book is a little bit like standing in a spotlight, waiting to see if the performance will receive applause or a barrage of rotten fruit. But I feel lucky to be standing here at all, even if I do get pelted with oranges.

No one wants to read a book about the theater.

It's too niche.

Almost as bad as a book about the opera.

I have no idea how we would market this.

These responses are not verbatim, but variations on a theme that we heard when Eyes Like Stars was out on submission. It had taken me nine months to write the novel, sign with my agent, and get it on the editors' desks, and only about nine days to feel that all hope was lost, that my cupcake-riddled, fairy-glittery story wasn't ever going to find a home.

And under all the despair and hair pulling, I wondered if they weren't right. Who would want to read a fantasy set in a theater?

People who like reading and acting and Phantom of the Opera... and High School Musical--that's doing pretty well!--and unconventional fantasy? Please? Maybe?

I hadn't thought about it during the writing process, because that's the time for putting your fingers on the keys and your nose to the screen, but afterward I had plenty of time to think over things like target audience and appropriate age range and marketability.

Before I had the chance to go completely insane, the offer came in from Feiwel & Friends. In keeping with the power of nine, it took nine months before the contract was signed and the news went public. By the time the books hits the shelves, it will have been three years from the time I put the first word on the screen. The novel went through several major revisions--my editor (the lovely and incomparable Rebecca Davis) helped me take a shiny idea and turn it into a novel that worked

But it was, and always will be, a book about the theater.

And I see the excitement over the new Glee TV series, I am hearing the first reactions of the YA bloggers and reviewers who also happen to be theater-lovers, costumers, drama enthusiasts... and I know that it was not too niche, that people DO want to read about theater, that authors shouldn't worry that their book is too different than what's already out there because it may just be the book that readers are waiting to crack open.

Seriously, this looks so good! I'm not a huge fantasy reader, but I would totally pick this up, knowing it's about theater! Why do publishers think people don't want to read about the theater...um, hello? I think theater, acting/singing is more popular now than it has been in the past 20 or even 50 years. Good luck!

I especially love the part about writing being about putting your fingers on the keys. It's so easy (even more so after you've sold a book) to over-think the target demographic, marketing possibilities, etc., but in the end we can only write a good book and hope that it finds a good home.

In this case, I happen to KNOW Lisa has written a fantastic book - because I've read it - and I can't wait for the rest of the world to discover the magic of the Theatre Illuminata.

Post a Comment

Hey! For some reason, this embedded comment form makes most people click twice before the comment is processed and published. It's not you - it's just that it's a new Blogger feature with kinks and all that. (But I adore it and don't wanna get rid of it!) I removed Captcha to make the process easier. You don't have to rewrite the comments twice; just click on SUBMIT twice and it should work. If not, email me. Thanks! -Steph